Once the petals have fallen, many people mistake dead dahlia flowers for flower buds. So is that a bud or a dead flower?

 

Number 2 on the above photo is a dead flower and number 1 is a flower bud that has yet to open

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The photos on the left are dead flower heads. They are more conical in shape and if they are lightly squeezed, they feel empty and may exude a liquid.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The photographs on the right show buds that have yet to open. They are more rounded in shape and firm if lightly squeezed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dead heading is probably not a very good description of the process as you should really remove the flower and the stem down to where a new shoot is forming. Cut just above the new shoot to encourage new growth and new flowers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dahlias can provide flowers for the house from about July until the first frosts. One problem however, is that dahlias tend to make the water in the vase smelly and a produce a scum on the sides of the vase. I put small amount (I suppose it amounts to about a teaspoonful) of bleach into the water which prevents this from happening and surprisingly doesn’t affect the flowers. Our other problem is that some of the flowers on our plants are just too huge for the house so bear the flower size in mind when buying varieties to use as cut flowers. I suppose if you live in a mansion with large rooms huge blooms may be OK but we don’t! We just content ourselves with admiring the larger blooms on the plants.

 

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